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SCHOOL PACK FOR TEACHING HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY/CITIZENSHP/BRITISH

EMPIRE

Notes for teachers;

Read the section about slavery in the Hidden Histories Blog:

https://hiddenhistoriestanzania.wordpress.com/blog-feed/

This pack is useful for the following curricula:

Pearson/Edexcel History A/S level

Route E/35.1

Industrialisation and social change in Britain,

c1759–1928

Britain: losing and gaining an empire, 1763–1914

Pearson Edexcel Human Geography

Section C – students are required to apply their knowledge and

understanding of human and physical geography to investigate broader

global issues. Students choose one out of three questions from:

• fragile environments and climate change,

• globalisation and migration,

• development and human welfare.

Topic 8: Globalisation and migration – the characteristics and growth in

globalisation, including the role of global institutions and transnational

corporations, and the impacts of increased globalisation, including migration

and tourism and different approaches to managing migration and tourism in

a more sustainable way.

Topic 9: Development and human welfare – definitions and ways of

measuring development and human welfare, patterns of global

development and the consequences of variations in development, and

different strategies to address uneven levels of development and human

welfare.

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This material aims to be used in conjunction with the film, photos (colour

copies in Appendix 1), The Tanzania as an invaded City Fact Sheet, and the

Resistance and Rebellion Fact Sheet.

All this material is potentially upsetting, disturbing or confusing for students.

Ground rules need to be established:

- No interrupting, let people finish their sentences and encourage

people to articulate what they want to say

- No raising voices or accusing people

- How to spot vulnerability, pain or upset in peers, and what to do about

it

- Recognise the legacies of this racialisation and hierarchies is very

present in contemporary society, and this is discussed right at the end.

1. AIM and LEARNING OUTCOMES: Use maps to build up a picture of

social geographical features of Tanzania and sharpen investigative

and deductive learning skills.

Using Google earth, and google street map, locate Tanga Tanzania. In

groups of 4/6 discuss with each other:

• What does it look like?

• Does it rain much?

• What appears to be growing?

• What are the local resources there?

• What are the main forms of transport?

• How easy is it to travel in and out of Tanga?

• Are there regular flights? Ferries? What other modes of transport

might there be?

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• Why is the transport connectedness to the rest of Africa and the

rest of the world from Tanga important?

2. Exercise 2: What do you know about Tanzania and the maritime trade

between Tanzania and the UK?

Discussion exercise (30 mins)

AIMS and LEARNING OUTCOMES

Using the internet to research

Understand how different sources give different results

Discovering how Tanzania is represented in the internet

In pairs first take a few minutes to discuss what you already know about

Tanzania.

For example:

• Where it is, language spoken, what the main features of the

country are.

• Then type each of these key words into a search engine.

• Write down the key points of your research from each site.

How do you know this? Is it a reliable source or hearsay? Is it a primary

or secondary source? (what does this mean?)

Keywords

Have a look at the photographs from the RMG collections of British

boats. And type in these key words or phrases to a search engine. In

groups of 3 or 4, discuss the questions….

‘German colonialism in Tanzania’ ‘sisal’ ‘British occupation of Tanga’

‘The role of Tanzanian soldiers in World Wars’ ‘Tanzania and Great

Britain’ ‘Martime trade Tanzania’ and ‘World Bank maritime trade

Tanzania’ ‘Greenwich Museum and Tanzania’

• What do you find? What is the picture that you are

building up about Tanga Tanzania?

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•

What does Tanzania export to Britain?

•

What does Britain export to Tanzania?

• Why did Indian and African sailors work on boats in and

out of Tanzania?

• What are these boats carrying?

What might be problematic about this form of research?

• How could you check and triangulate your research?

• Why is there so much information missing about Tanga

Tanzania despite its key role in the British and German

empires?

3. ROLE PLAY, Selling off land for the British Empire (20 mins)

AIM AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: understand and empathise with the

individuals involved in the day to day of colonialism. Recognise how

large events (eg imperialism) often boil down to a series of small events

and negotiations.

This role play is between the wealthy Tanzanian Muslim matriach called

Madame Heshima Begum, and the bespectacled 25 year old civil

servant Stanley Manley from Hertfordshire. It is 1920 and Stanley has

been instructed by the Westminster parliament to make Tanzania more

profitable. He needs to buy land.

Stan, as the civil servant, thinking about Tanga as a colonial port and

business centre: from a colonial perspective, what are the important

factors and priorities? Why do you need this land? How are you going

to convince Madame Heshima Begum to sell?

Madame Heshima Begum, you are a wealthy landowner whose family

has been resident in Tanga for several generations. You wish your own

children to get substantial benefits and to go to the best schools, but

this colonial administrator is offering you ten times your annual salary for

your field, which he says he wants to plant sisal. What are you going to

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weigh up? You have had a terrible harvest for the last 7 years as you

come out of war.

Both characters draw the table below

In one column put pros of selling the other cons. In a third column put

‘hindsight’ – knowing what you know now, how would that change

your behaviours?

How do the two perspectives vary?

Which character is ‘easier’ to play and which one do you identify with

more?

Do you think Stanley Manley is acting on behalf of British taxpayers who

subsidise colonial governments, or is he out to use the field for his own

benefit?

Pros of selling land Cons of selling land In hindsight?

4. Research exercise: Reading between the lines (20 minutes)

Read the following excerpt (Tanga as a contested city attachment)

and discuss the answers in groups of 3-4. Choose a spokesperson for

the group and feedback present to the rest of the class your answers.

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Make sure someone in your group is writing down your answers. For the

last question write a paragraph to explain your answer.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES:

look at the role of history in forming national identities and loyalty. Look

at slavery from the perspective of those being occupied.

Questions:

These questions can be set up as debates- with teams arguing

opposing sides, and a panel that ‘judges’ which team gives the better

arguments.

• Did you know that the apartheid system was used in countries

apart from South Africa and that it was invented by the British?

What is apartheid?

• Why is it important that there were other visitors/invaders/traders

before the British colonial occupation? (hint- if you think that

there is nothing or no-one of value in a society, does it make it

easier to destroy it?)

• What do you know about Chinese donor aid? Is it any different

from American, British or European aid?

• Why are countries so keen to fund other countries’ projects?

• Why is it important there is evidence of African literacy, religion

art, communication prior to European conquests and invasions?

(Hint why was it so important for Europeans to justify their moral

superiority during colonialism?)

• Do you think money earned from oil and gas projects is a good

idea to fund modernising, in the face of our current extreme fossil

fuels situation? Why? (write a 500 word paragraph)

5. Research Exercise: can we ever make sense of slavery? (20-30

minutes)

Watch This: short animation of the maritime movement during 6 centuries

of the slave trade:

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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/0

6/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html?v

ia=gdpr-consent&via=gdpr-consent

See photos

Read the following short paragraphs (1) and (2) and then look at the

slavery section on the Hidden Histories blog. The photographs (see

appendix) come from the Greenwich Museum, in groups of three, and

discuss the questions below. (This is non-written comprehension and

discussion exercise)

AMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Understand the role of slavery in British economic expansion and history

Contrast the development of Europe with the under-development of

Africa; think about the actual practicalities of slavery as a trade

practice and a human rights event;

Encourage students to listen and debate with each other and read the

material very closely

Encourage a range of critical interpretations of the material

Questions:

-

What are the main, big differences between the Transatlantic

Slave Trade and The East African Slave Trade?

- Why do many Tanzanians say that slavery only ended for them in

1961

- What role does IBEAC play in slavery? Why is it important that it’s

a private company and not British Government?

- If you look in detail at people’s lives, What are the differences for

men and women working in Slavery in USA, Brazil and Southern

Africa?

- What does dehumanising mean? Explore contemporary

examples of where people are dehumanised. Why does this

happen?

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(1) THE EAST AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE SLAVERY IN

TANZANIA

Unlike the Transatlantic slave trade that exported enslaved people from

Africa to Europe and the Americans, the East Africa trade focus is on the

enslaved society that existed within Africa. African people who were taken to

the Americas to work in colonial homes and on plantations. It is less known

that Tanzania, Zanzibar and the Cape Colony were also slave societies from

the 17th to 20th centuries.

The East African slave trade supplied people for spice and clove plantations

on Zanzibar, Pemba and sisal plantations in Tanzania. Less frequently they

supplied people for the UK or West Indies, as the journey round the Cape of

Good Hope was very dangerous, and ships were wrecked.

In 1652, the Dutch East India Company established a halfway station and

trading base at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. British ships carrying

enslaved people also used this base en route to the UK. It is estimated that in

the 1700s and 1800s between 40-63% of British insurance wealth was gained

via the slave trade1 (Inikori 2003) and London commerce and academia was

constructed on the wealth of this trade. (Pearson & Richardson 2019, Saini

2020).

It was more profitable for colonial captains moving enslaved

people to claim insurance on a dead body than keep people

alive. In other words, it was cheaper for him to throw a sick person

overboard than keep them alive. The city of London insurance

companies Lloyds and London Assurance and Royal Exchange all

underwrote the slave trade, see HERE. London, Bristol and Liverpool

are partially built on the profits of slavery.

(source Pearson and Richardson 2019, David Olusoga 2017)

1 Sources: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2020/06/19/572859.htm and https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/insuring-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/F1E2354A667CF7A4DB989838F37B2DC2# accessed 11/04/21

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The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) was a separate commercial

organisation set up in 1874. Led by shipbuilder William McKinnon It had a

vague mandate to ‘protect’ Tanga and develop African trade in the areas

controlled by the British empire. The company was granted a royal imperial

charter on 6 September 1888 —although it remained unclear what this

actually meant. The IBEAC oversaw an area of about 246,800 square miles

(639,000 km2) Re. 'The IBEAC oversaw an area of about 246,800 square miles

(639,000 km2) Great Britain is about 80,000 sq miles.

along the eastern coast of Africa. It lobbied (successfully) for building a

railway line from Tanga to Mwanza, granted immunity of prosecution to

British subjects whilst allowing them the right to raise taxes, impose custom

duties, administer justice, make treaties and otherwise act as the government

of the area.

Meanwhile in the UK, despite abolition of the slave trade in 1807 (and slavery

overall in 1833), thousands of enslaved people were still being captured

marched out of Tanzania and used in various ways2. As porters for expeditions

and caravans across Southern and Eastern Africa; as labour on their oil-

producing grain plantations in Kenya and sugar plantations in Tanzania, as

labourers on the railways, and for domestic use for expatriates. People were

often never directly paid, instead going directly to their owners (Morton

1990:138) or ‘ransoming schemes’ where slaves paid of the debt to a third

party whilst working for German or English overseers (Wilson-Marshall and

Kiriama 2018:566).

The East African Slave ports- like Tanga and Pangni- and inland areas were

essential to the British government. They secured vital access to the Indian

trade routes, to a supply of labour and to the rich wealth of the spice and

clove plantations of Zanzibar and Pemba (Trivedi 1971). By 1884, the Berlin

Conference carved up Africa along arbitrary lines to European colonisers

who largely had gained land through deception and without consultation

with existing African rulers. IBEAC was running at a significant financial loss,

and it was imperative to stop the Middle Eastern control of the seas, including

their capturing and transporting of people into slavery.

Definitions: What is slavery? 3i

2 See Hansard 3 March 1892 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1892/mar/03/the-imperial-british-east-africa-company accessed 1.4.21 3 (material copied and adapted from Iziko Salve Lodge, South Africa. http://slavery.iziko.org.za/)

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People give different meanings to the word “slavery”. The term “slave” may

be used in different contexts to indicate the lack of free will or hard work. The

term ‘enslaved person’ rather than ‘slave’ is preferred as this gives the

enslaved individuals an identity as people. Similarly the term slaveholders

should be used rather than slave-owners or slave masters, to indicate that

people were enslaved against their will.

The definition of slavery is not clear-cut. Many forms of slave labour existed in

the past and many forms of labour that can be called unfree or bonded

labour.

Enslaved people were mostly never paid. Or they were paid in alchohol, or

paid off a debt, (similar to situations in contemporary people trafficking) or

were partially paid, or paid in kind.

(2) What did it really mean to be a slave?4

The form of slavery used in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Americas is

called chattel slavery. Chattel slaves were obtained in the lands of their birth

and taken against their will to different places and sold again. These people

were, and could, be resold or transferred (just as we do with property such as

bicycles and cars today) without their permission and without receiving any

compensation.

Slaves had no say about to whom they could be sold. Slaves were

systematically denied their humanity. So it’s not appropriate to use

dehumanizing words such as commodity, cargo and owner to describe the

system.

White European slaveholders almost never actually ventured into the

mainland to do the finding or buying of people for slavery. Scouts recruited

by European overseers would bring people in chains back to Tanga, Dar es

Salaam and Pangani, to transport on to Zanzibar, where there was a

European slave auction. The slave trade was messy, disruptive, stop start,

chaotic and brutal. The last slaves left the Tanzanian beach of Michokuni

4 (material copied and adapted from Iziko Salve Lodge, South Africa. http://slavery.iziko.org.za/)

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near Tanga and Pangani in 1942 for the Middle East, and although human

trafficking goes on still, it is not common in Tanzania.

interactive map depicting the origins of Cape slaves and the routes used to transport them (spanning

the Indian Ocean) as can be seen at the Iziko Slave Lodge.

What Did Slaves Do?

In Tanga and surrounds in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s there were many

colonial experiments to grow sugar, peanuts, cashew, sisal on plantations.

Many were disastrous. (Cooper 1997, Glassman 1996, Kopponen1988). Many

German and English colonialists used Tanga as an area to ‘experiment’ on.

These planations were nowhere near the scale of North America, Brazil and

the West Indies, and apart from sisal were out of use by the middle of the 20th

century.

Many male slaves were entrusted with very skilled jobs; for example clove

fertilisation is highly specific work. Slaves worked in warehouses, and did the

heavy labour with the construction of public buildings and

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fortifications. Privately owned slaves were hired out by their owners to do

unskilled work like drivers, bricklayers, masons, painters, carpenters, cobblers,

tailors, dock-workers, fishermen and boat builders.

Slaves in domestic service cooked, did needle work, cleaned homes,

collected firewood and fetched water from the water pumps. There was no

tap water and electricity available. Domestic work took up a lot of time. The

houses had to be cleaned, a big task in an era of dirt roads and coal ovens.

Washing had to be done by hand.

Food such as fruit, vegetables and meat had to be preserved as there were

neither deep freezers nor refrigerators. All meals had to be prepared from

scratch.

Almost all skilled work in Tanga city was done by slaves and ex slaves.

Research Exercise 6: AIMS and OBJECTIVES:

Encourage people to make connections between historical events and the

present. Look at the legacies of racism and empire in contemporary society.

Encourage people to take responsibility.

Read sections 3 and 4 and look at these photos (they are the same ones we

showed our Tanzanian interviewees, Charles Joseph Nyasolo, Joel Negamile

and Mama Mefaki).

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Discussion points:

• Is it relevant to teach the very painful subject of slavery? Why?

• How and why was colonial power enacted?

• Why did it last so long?

• Why did it fall apart?

• Did the British have a moral superiority? How?

• There is great opposition to slavery in the UK yet it continues until

late 1900s. Why do you think this happened?

• What responsibilities do you have to make sure that Britain deals

better with its legacies of racism and slavery?

• How can we make the connections between the rise of

nationalism, racism and race hate crimes and events from

several hundred years ago?

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(3) Slavery in Tanga Tanzania

In the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s Centuries, during the height of European

colonial occupation and desecration of Africa, Tanga city was a key

stopping point for caravans on the 2-3000-mile trek inland to Central Africa

searching for ivory, gold, ambigris and people to capture for slaves. The peak

of the trade was probably around the 1800’s.

AMBIGRIS is basically sperm whale poo, or sperm whale vomit, and escribed

as floating gold. It’s a highly-prized natural treasure used by past kings and

still sought after by artisan perfumers. Ambigris is worth £50,000 for a 1.57kg

lump.

Tanga was a gathering place for scouts from different tribes who were

encouraged to look for existing conflicts and rivalries, exploit them, and bring

back healthy men and women in their teens and twenties for export. Certain

tribes – The Yao for example - gained a reputation (amongst the English

colonisers) for being less rebellious, easier to work with – eg more likely to

betray their country people. These prejudices still exist today. (Wilson-Marshall

and Kiriama 2018).

Slavery was very different for men and women- female concubines were

technically ‘free’ when they had produced children recognised by their

masters, that meant in practice they could not be sold, and many ransomed

themselves, ran away, or sought more security by learning dances and rituals

essential to puberty and marriage that gave them higher status. ‘Mganga’

(healers) also developed complex methods of aiding fertility or aborting

pregnancies to make a claim to a particular owner, or to avoid being tied to

a master. (Wilson et al ibid)

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Joel Negamile, Tanga Museum curator and artist,

Listen to Joel’s views on slavery HERE,

and read the English transcript HERE (12.20.19 Tanga)

There are many forms of slavery with different rules. For many Tanzanians work

that does not offer choice, dignity and adequate pay, and is repetitive is

called slavery. For this reason they say slavery continued until 1961 in parts of

Tanzania.

Successive commissioners and governors responded in varying degrees to

the settlers’ demands, and it was not until 1918 and largely as a result 50 (little

reported in the UK) incidents of resistance in Tanzania, that compulsory labour

on either public or private projects was strictly forbidden. The repressive laws

on loitering and hanging for minor offences only got over-turned in the

revolution in 1961.

“Some people claim they don’t have time to greet. Their time is a European time, some

claim not to be Swahili any more; I think globalization and mental slavery has changed their

mental ideology everyone thinks being like a European is an advancement in life. It’s not.”

Joel Negamile Tanga 2019

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Listen to this interview HERE; Charles Joseph Nyasolo (above, Tanga 2020)

describes trading and selling of people into Middle Eastern slavery on the

beach in Michikuni, Tanga, Tanzania in the 1920’s

“ The slave trade bosses didn’t walk they were carried in a bed where they could just give

commanding orders to their security personnel; the slaves who died on the journey were

left behind as others proceeded with the journey….The benefits of knowing our history ARE

essential, where did we come from and where am going that is the benefit….It’s just like we

have been covered by an umbrella where it’s raining, but (if it’s not big enough) your legs

are still getting wet! ”

(CJN interview 9.1.20 Tanga)

The English transcript accessed HERE

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(4) Collusion by African people in African Enslavement

There is an ongoing debate about which African groups participated,

colluded and aided slavery. Middle Eastern slavery, that began before the

Europeans were involved, certainly made use of African scouts, middle men

and traders.

Many Middle Eastern merchants settled in what is now coastal Tanzania and

Zanzibar and Pemba. They are called ‘Shirazi’ or Wajemi by Tanzanians and

are considered an elite. They also played a role in trading their fellow

Tanzanians.

Slavery is painful to talk about in Tanzania and is avoided as a topic: there

are elders alive who had great grandparents that experienced it. It was a

wholesale barbaric process that left whole villages destroyed, with goats,

chickens, childrens and gardens all destroyed. The damage is still being felt

today, even though slavery was made illegal, it actually continued-

according to Tanzanian people in Songea and Tanga, until 1962 and 1941.

Mama Mefaki lives and works in Tanga Tanzania as a photographer. Her

family were involved in slave- trading and holding with the Middle East, which

is locally stigmatised and very uncomfortable for her to talk about.

Mama Mefaki, Sylvester Mkwaya and Aida Mulokozi (researchers) Tanga 2019

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Listen to Mama Mefaki talk about looking at the Royal Museum

Greenwich photos of enslaved people (below) HERE

And read the transcript (in English) HERE

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262003.html

‘An Arab master’s punishment for a slight offence. The log weighed 32 pounds, and the boy could

only move by carrying it on his head. An actual photograph taken by one of our missionaries.’. From

at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal.

Photographic images of slavery provided vivid and irrefutable evidence of the ongoing cruelty of the

East African and Indian Ocean trades. They were often used as the basis for engravings reproduced

in popular journals such as ‘The Graphic’ and ‘The Illustrated London News’. (circa 1890)

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Mama Mefaki, with cashata (peanut butter brittle) Tanga 2020

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Exercise 7 The end of Slavery? Resistance and Rebellion (discussion 20 mins)

AIMS and OUTCOMES: to discuss the different agendas of the people who

wanted slavery to end, to evaluate how ‘fake news’ has been around for

over three hundred years!

Make sure you refer to the Resistance and Rebellion Fact Sheet

Questions:

- Why was it important for the British to downplay the continuation

of slavery long after it had been abolished?

- Look at the RMG photos of Mohammad bin Hamed Tippu Tib (at

the end of this document). What is your opinion of slave traders

like him? Were you aware that he was Tanzanian? Or that he

worked with the British and Middle Eastern buyers?

- Why is it so important for British to control the sea routes to India

from Africa? What are the implications for the sailors? Would they

be recruiting many Africans to work on the boats to India? Why?

- In the photograph of the people on board a slave ship, they are

referred to as ‘Cargo of newly released slaves’ – why is this term

very problematic and damaging?

- where had these slaves been captured? and from whom? Why

do you think it was so important for the British to promote

themselves as having an anti- slave agenda, when in fact the GB

abolitionist movement was fairly small?

One of the reasons slavery continued in Tanzania and Zanzibar for so

long- despite being made illegal in Britain and Zanzibar- was that the

British authorities turned a blind eye. Also, it was very difficult to check

up and enforce. But since the police were all colonially administered

too, maybe there wasn’t much willpower to enforce it in Tanzania and

Zanzibar?

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Having free labour for the colonial powers worked well for them.

Maybe expats tried to ‘get away with it’, far from Westminster

parliament and the legal and judicial forces of the UK.

It’s hard to look at this photo (below) and wonder what the UK

government’s motives were at the time. Was it propaganda, the British

trying to prove that they were ethically superior to the Zanzibaris, who

didn’t ban the slave trade until much later?

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262002.html

‘Cargo of newly released slaves’ on board H.M.S. London' 1880

In the 20th Century the Germans also made Tanga a centre of colonial

administration during their occupation until they were forced to give

Tanzania to the British in 1919. Evidence of German’s presence is seen in the

hospital, the main streets, and the museum. Tanga’s port, is currently being

enlarged and dredged to provide a main link between northern Tanzania

and the Indian Ocean. At the same time there are plans to build a new fish

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market and expand an oil and gas terminal, in the hope of finding oil and

liquid natural gas off the coastline..

Exercise 8 What is resistance?

AIMS AND OUTCOMES

To consider how and why people resisted English and German colonisers. To

consider how the dominance of written history makes it easier to tell the

‘colonial side of the story’. To investigate whether history is always written by

the winners. To look at how Tanzanian and other non-literate societies record

their histories.

Read the following sections (5) and the case studies and consider the

following questions:

• What do you think were the most common forms of resistance for

people living in Tanga, Zanzibar and areas overseen by the Sultan but

administered by the British protectorate? Why?

• How do you resist doing a task for someone you don’t want to do for

someone you don’t respect? (List the ways!)

(5) Resistance and Rebellion:

The English and The Germans developed terrible reputations as bosses, and

people devised all sorts of ways to avoid working for them. They left and went

into the ‘shamba’ where colonial administrators rarely went. They took on

new identities. They ran their own businesses and smallholdings, or

deliberately worked incredibly slowly and inefficiently. (Wilson et al 2018.

Cooper 1997, Glassman 1996).

Because so few Tanzanians voluntarily chose to work for Europeans, the

colonial settlers wanted the Birtish government to institute a system that

would compel people to offer their services to European farmers on threat of

hanging.

Resistance to German and British occupancy in Tanga seems to be have

been particularly strong. There are several main rebellions, and lots more that

are discussed in Tanzania using their traditions of dance, rituals and oral

history that don’t make it into British history books. (Oral history comprises

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spoken word, song, call and response, poetry, sculpture, and collective

expression) You can hear an example of Bi Asha talking about learning agriculture using

oral history HERE

And read the English transcript HERE

Mara kulima mashamba, jioni tuvune pamba, tena tujenge majumba

na kodi tukidabiri. Sisi umetukamata, wengine hutawapata; hapane

budi na vita, ndio yetu mashauri. Sisi na watoto wetu tutakufa, sibaki

mtu; ijapo hatuna kitu kabisa hatughairi.

We cultivate the fields, Afternoons we harvest cotton, Then we build

your mansions And must look for ways to pay taxes. Some of us

you've captured But others you won't get; There's no alternative to

war, We must carry it out. We and our children Shall die, nobody will

remain, Even if we have nothing We won't change our minds

Abdul Karim bin Jamaldini, "Utenzi was Vita vya Maji Maji `19335

Research exercise:

Read the materials about Rebellion and Resistance and any (or

all) of the 5 case studies, including ‘ingenious undermining’.

• List the various ways it is possible to rebel against resist or ignore colonial

rule

• How did both British and German administrators and governments

under-estminate Tanzanian and Zanzibari people?

• What do you think the influences of slavery and the first world war are

on people’s state of mind in Tanzania when these rebellions happen?

• Why do we know so little about the rebellions and resistance in colonial

Africa?

• List the MATERIAL reasons (eg lack of books) and the intellectual and

social reasons that we know less about the Tanzanian side of history.

5 ," in Mitteilungen der Seminar fur Orientalische Sprachen, Jahrgang XXXVI, 3 Abtg (Berlin, 1933), 229- 230. See English translation by Wilfred Whiteley, Kampala, 1957)

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• Why is it so significant that Germans used dogs in their attacks (in a

Muslim society) foreign mercenaries, and did not follow Swahili Coastal

social etiquette and rules of politeness?

• What stereotypes prevail about Africa today? How do you think this

influences our understanding of Tanga people’s ability to fight back?

Case Study 1: Usibiri (Al Bashiri) rebellion 1888

Tanga coast was wealthy: various groups from Tanzania, India and Oman all

jostled for power to control the valuable port, fertile agriculture lands, and of

course trade in Ivory and gold. The Al bashiri revolts were led by a prominent

and charismatic leader who united a complicated system of rulers- Shehas

(chiefs) DiWalis and Diwan (aristocrats accountable to the Omani Sultan)

and Wazee (Tanzanian elders) against the Germans. He capitalised on

appalling behaviours and mounting local frustration and offence at how the

occupiers behaved.

Under Carl Peters the Germans looked to quickly inject finance and resources

into the floundering German East Africa company (DOAG). Upon taking

occupation in 1888 of Tanzania they tried several things at once: to launch

expeditions into the interior to set up tea and coffee plantations and

agriculture in the Usambara mountains (a resounding failure) and to impose

harbour duties and taxes on the local population. They also charged people

burial taxes, used dogs to attack mosques and opened fire on unarmed

civilians.

In August 1888 The DOAG took control of local Tanga and Pangani forts, tried

to bully local labour (for free) to be porters and raised the German flag in

prominent city buildings. Most offensively, they ransacked mosques and

private homes, disrupting delicate social arrangements and existing trading

deals between different Tanzanian groups along the coast. They recruited

over a thousand Sudanese, Somali and Mozambique Mercenaries to fight the

Tanzanian people. This of course incensed people of Tanga even further.

The lack of decorum, manners, impatience, respectability and care shown

by the Germans enraged Tanga people, who had a very rigorous code of

etiquette, plus their own systems of trading and barter relationships with the

different social groups. In short the Germans trampled over people, and

coming at the end of a hundred years of exploitative trading relationships

and slavery, this went down very badly. (Akinola 1975, Pike 1988)).

25

The Albushiri rebellions began in August 1888 were characterised by extreme

brute force and firepower on the part of the Germans.

Local poem during the Al Bushiri rebellion, from Pike 1986

.Mabati yaporomoka Iron roofs crash down

majumba yakianguka, watu wanatetemeka hawalijui shauri Watu waliotilifu siwawezi kuwasifu kwa sababu maarufu sipati kuwakadiri

Large buildings collapse People tremble, There is nowhere to turn The fallen people I cannot praise Because I cannot even Suggest their real worth.

When news reached local people in Tanga that German officials had raped

a local young woman people took up arms and resisted. There were

rebellions all the way down the coast that lasted from August 1888 until the

middle of the following year.

Al Bushiri was a charismatic, skilled fighter and speech maker, who managed

to combine many of the smaller factions along the coast. He was met with

increasingly huge levels of cannons, army, and firepower, and was greatly

outnumbered.

We can credit the beginnings of ‘guerrilla’- or peoples’ warfare to Al Bushiri,

(tactics later copied by the ANC, the FMLN in Nicaragua and The VietCong

in Vietnam). He used his superior knowledge of the countryside and was held

in very high regard by local people, who would hide and feed him, and join

his armies.

Two young prominent German leaders were captured and taken to a local

high ranking rulers house called Sembodja, where they were chained up and

all their belongings – including diaries, food and furniture, were confiscated.

They were made to dance and ‘perform’ as Tanzanians were for the

Germans. After a few days they were released and allowed to join the ruler

for supper, and returned back to Tanga. He referred afterwards to them as

children whom he wished to teach a lesson.

26

Bwana wetu, tumechoka kila siku kutumika tufe, yatoke mashaka'

naam temekhitari!

Our master, we are tired of being used every day, Better to die, and

be free From this burden'

Abdul Karim bin Jamaldini, "Utenzi was Vita vya Maji Maji," ibid 1933

Case Study 2: Maji Maji Uprising

Resources;

For an extremely clear and concise summary see: -

https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/maji-maji-uprising-1905-

1907/

John Illiffe writes in 1968:

“Maji Maji offered Tanzanians a solution to the problem of unity and

morale. Twenty years of foreign occupation made the ground fertile for

revolt, but its immediate inspiration came in the person of Kinjeketile

Ngwale of Ngarambi. In 1904 he was possessed by the spirit Hongo.

(Kinjeketile's title was Bokero; his assistants were called Hongo, giving

the term both a lay and spiritual dimension.) He was taken by a spirit

one day ... they saw him go on his belly, his hands stretched out before

him ... then he disappeared into a pool of water.... Those who knew

how to swim (i.e., to exorcise by entering a trance) dived down into the

pool, but they did not see anything.... The fol- lowing morning he

emerged ... he emerged unhurt with his clothes dry. After returning

from there he began talking of prophetic matters. He said, "All dead

ancestors will come back; they are at Bokero's in Rufiji Rushingo.... We

are all the Sayyid Said's, the Sayyid's alone.

Kinjeketile called for the unity of all Africans. He proclaimed Africans to

be a free people. He told his followers that their dead ancestors would

assist them, and that all who drank his water would be immune to

European bullets. His vision had great symbolic strength. He called for

society to organize in a new way and to use the power of water - the

essence of life - for its regeneration. A great whispering campaign -

usually called Nywinywita and widely employing the Swahili language -

spread throughout southern Tanganyika. Its message was clear: no

work without pay, an end to oppression, war. Pilgrimages to Ngarambi

began in July and August 1904,125 and by July 1905, attacks had

begun on all German centers of power”.

27

Case Study 3: The Giriami rebellions

In 1912, British colonial officials responded to white settler calls for more

plantation labor from the Giriama people, who lived in Kenya’s coastal

hinterland. Up to this point, the Giriama were skilled and successful

agriculturalists, and had maintained autonomy despite steady British

advancement into their lands. Giriama elders, refused to assist the local

British administrator in recruiting laborers or collecting taxes. Mekatilili, a

charismatic woman prophet who drew on an established tradition of female

prophecy further encouraged the Giriama to refuse British requests. In her

public speeches she invoked ancestors and spirits to restore community

equilibrium through resistance. British colonial troops’ destroyed an important

place of prayer and ritual (the kaya) in August 1914 in retaliation for

continued Giriama defiance.

In 1914, with news of the war’s outbreak, the British wanted urgently to recruit

Giriama porters to accompany them carrying all the food, tents, heavy arms

and ammunitions. They unsuccessfully pressured the Giriama and in the same

year, the rape of a Giriama woman by a colonial soldier incensed Giriama

as the ultimate disrespectful act. Armed with bows and arrows, Giriama

fighters shot at British forces and mission stations, inflicting minimal damage.

But soldiers of the British King’s African Rifles (KAR), inflicted massive damage

on the Giriama in return: The troops fired on all Giriama they met, children,

women, boys, whether or not they were hostile, and systematically

confiscated goats and burned dwellings.

In 1915, the KAR forced the Giriama into a reserve, though many escaped.

The British imposed a major fine, and ordered 1,000 porters to work for the

KAR, now fully engaged in fighting the Germans in the East African

campaign. A combination of drought, crop failure, and loss of livestock

caused widespread hunger amongst the Giriama. They were forced to pay

the fine leveled against them in 1915, they had to give up their 1916 harvest:

they went hungry whilst KAR troops fed on their year’s work. Stripped of their

land, a way of life, their work, the Giriama never recovered, and many joined

forces with the Kikuyu 30 years later to attack and revenge the British in the

Mau- Mau rebellions.

28

Case study 4: Mau Mau rebellions

Mau Mau rebellions YOU TUBE Mau Mau Uprising 1952-60 - Anti-British Rebellion

in Kenya 12 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYMVLbeAQ_o

(Made in USA, highly critical of British and white settlers)

What factors contributed to Kenya dissatisfaction and desire to resist white

rule?

What does it mean to keep people in 'systematic poverty'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk3RWZ-ufAA

Al Jazeera documentary Kenya's Mau Mau: The Last Battle l Witness (47 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEwOICbKXcw

To understand Tanzania rebellion it also is helpful to have the context of the

first world war, from this short film:

Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZlJCRR1OME World War 1

Explained (2/4): The African perspective | DW English --

Case study 5: Ingenious undermining: small

and clever ways to disrupt productivity

Resistance could take many small forms; for example people working on

sugar plantations stealing small amounts (unnoticeable) of sugar every day.

Or refusing to be as accurate as necessary when picking cloves (if they are

picked too young, or too near the stem, they are not useful). Other tactics

included working very slowly.

The British colonisers in Tanga and Zanzibar were OBSESSED with taxes and

house rent and ground rent. They were permanently involved in conflicts with

Tanzanians and Zanzibaris with people who refused to pay their rents. There

were some large (violent) rent strikes with many deaths of local people in

1922 in Zanzibar (Fair 2002).

Squatting land became- and remains- one of the main ways people resisted

being taxed, identified within bureaucracies and monitored.

Very often people ‘disappeared’ – moved cities or villages or lived lives that

made it very hard to track them down. This legacy remains on the Tanga

coast- people we talked to were very suspicious about any connection we

29

had with ‘authorities and government’ and we had to persuade them we

were not associated with government in any way.

People also deliberately made themselves unfit for work. Charles Joseph

Nyasolo talks about the famous ex (runaway) slave Khamis in Tanga, who,

having marched from the Congo was too unfit to be sold on to Europe at the

slave markets. He became extremely famous for outwitting the Europeans.

Listen to Charle’s interview HERE and read the transcript in

English HERE

Uchawi and witchcraft (hexs and spells) were commonly used: but not

necessarily to damage bosses and colonial overseers. Almost no-one could

afford medical care, and women often died in childbirth. Medicines and aids

to keep pregnancies healthy, to keep people alive against malaria, dengue

and cholera (still big killers in Tanga) were all very common in slave societies.

But the high prevalence of witchcraft in daily life, and the high number of

people who practice it along the Swahili coast does suggest that it would

have been used to curse bullying and violent bosses.

MORE Resources

https://issuu.com/lilli.wickstrom/docs/180524_pages_no_spreads) (See pages

10-11)

Watch this short animation of the maritime movement during 6 centuries of

the slave trade:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/

animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html?via=g

dpr-consent&via=gdpr-consent

See photos

Read this section about slavery in the Hidden Histories Blog:

https://hiddenhistoriestanzania.wordpress.com/blog-feed/

30

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM RMG AND OTHER SOURCES FOR USE WITH SCHOOL

PACKS:

Undated image, people unknown, early photo showing enslaved women, wearing both the early

designs of kanga, covered by the thick canvas sail cloth ‘Amerikani’ that they were forced to wear.

Also carrying traditional tanga woven mats. Photo: Compliments of Zanzibar National Archive, AV

31

53.54

32

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254679.html

Published in 'The Graphic', 3 May 1873.

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254959.html

Robert O’Donelan Ross-Lewin was the Royal Navy chaplain aboard HMS 'London' in 1876-77.

'London' was an important instrument in the Royal Navy’s anti-slavery campaign along the East

Coast of Africa. The ship sailed to Zanzibar to take up her position as a stationary depot vessel to

counter the slave trade and maintain a presence against European rivals in the region. 1876-1877

33

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262003.html

‘An Arab master’s punishment for a slight offence. The log weighed 32 pounds, and the boy could

only move by carrying it on his head. An actual photograph taken by one of our missionaries.’. From

at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal.

Photographic images of slavery provided vivid and irrefutable evidence of the ongoing cruelty of the

East African and Indian Ocean trades. They were often used as the basis for engravings reproduced

in popular journals such as ‘The Graphic’ and ‘The Illustrated London News’.

34

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262006.html

Zanzibar group of Slaves circa, 1892 image courtesy of Greenwich Maritime Museum.

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262002.html Cargo of newly released slaves on

board H.M.S. London' 1880

35

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/261977.html

Silver gelatin print photograph of Mohammad bin Hamed, or Tippu Tip (circa 1830-1905). He was

born in Zanzibar and became involved in the lucrative caravan trade in eastern and central Africa. In

the 1870s and 1880s, Tippu Tip was the most powerful figure in what is now eastern Zaire, having

some 50,000 guns at his command. He accrued enormous wealth from slave trading and ivory

dealing to clients such as the Sultan of Zanzibar, to whom he remained fiercely loyal, and Henry

Morton Stanley. He was unable to maintain his position around Lake Tanganyika in the face of the

European partition and conquest of the region. In the late 1880s, he was briefly appointed governor

of Stanley Falls by King Leopold II of the Belgians (1835-1909), whose imperial and commercial

activities came to dominate the Congo Basin. Tippu Tip eventually retired to in Zanzibar and wrote

his autobiography, which became a classic of Swahili literature. 1890

36

Zanzibar group of slaves (ZBA2629) https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262025.html

1892

Selected Biography and resources:

Akinola G A, 1975 The East African Coastal Uprising Journal of the Historical

Society of Nigeria , June 1975, Vol. 7, No. 4 (June1975), pp. 609-630Published

by: Historical Society of Nigeria

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41971217.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_s

earch_gsv2%252Fcontrol&refreqid=excelsior%3A8ad90cfccf35c108ca33c8b0f

0f6c78d accessed 11.4.21

Bramley, A F; 2008; Women and Colonialism: Archival History and Oral

Memory. PhD thesis accessed 9.4.21 https://research-

information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/34504364/503902.pdf

Cooper, F. (2002). Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (New

Approaches to African History). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511800290C

Cooper F (2000) Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne

des Études Africaines, Taylor and Francis Vol. 34, No. 2 (2000), pp. 298-336

Cooper F: Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa

37

Cooper F: From Slaves to Squatters,

Cooper F: On the African Waterfront

Fabian F; (2013) Locating the local in the Coastal Rebellion of 1888–1890,

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 7:3, 432-449, DOI:

10.1080/17531055.2013.770680

Fair L; 2002 Politics and Pastimes

Glassman, J. P. (1995). Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular

Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888. Heinemann/James Currey.

Iliffe, John. 1983. The Emergence of African Capitalism. London: Macmillan.

James, C.L.R. [1938] 1963. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the

San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage

Koponen, J; (1988) People and Production in Late Precolonial Tanzania:

History and Structures. Jyväskyla and Uppsala (Finnish Society for

Development Studies and Scandinavian Institute of African Studies)

Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Subject and Citizen: Contemporary Africa and

the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mudimbe, V.Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the

Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Mwanzi H; 1985 African initiatives and resistance in East Africa, 1880-19, In:

General history of Africa, VII: Africa under colonial domination, 1880-1935, 7,

p. 149-168

National Archives, Kew, accessed online 11.4.21

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/64350975-8915-406a-84dd-

df715f3575a1#:~:text=The%20new%20Imperial%20British%20East,frontier%20of

%20the%20German%20Protectorate.

Olusoga D: 2017 Black and British A forgotten History. Pan MacMillan

Lester, A; Boehme K and Mitchell P; Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation

and Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century British Empire (Cambridge University

Press, 2021).

Pearson, R., & Richardson, D. (2019). Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The Journal of Economic History, 79(2), 417-446.

Saini A, 2020 Superior: The Return of race

Wynne Jones S and LaViolette A; (2020) The Swahili World, Routledge London

38

Acknowledgements and gratitude:

Neema Mtenga, Aida Mulokozi, Sylvester Mkwaya, Farid Hamid, Dr Nadine

Beckmann, Professor Felicity Becker (Ghent); Dr Noel Lwoga (Dar es Salaam);

Dr Sarah Longair, Gaspar Mdee (Dar es Salaam); Prof Anna Mdee, Prof Tony

Dowmunt, Prof Jim Hughes, Marina D’Alencon, Faye Belsey, Mel Rowntree,

Sarah Lockwood, Dr Aaron Jaffer, Sara Wajid OBE, Prof Alan Lester, Kala

Payne, Prof JoAnne McGregor, Prof James Fairhead, Prof Mike, Prof Paul

Lane, Dr Dacia Viejo Rose, Prof Annabelle Sreberny, Dr Dina Matar, Dr Gina

Heathcote, Jenny Matthews, Tanya Habouqua, Dr Tracey Jensen, Lisa

Hallgarten, Dr. Alice Wilson, Dr Nicole ; Clare Rogers, Katie Meeks,

i